Later today there will be an unveiling for Oregon Hill’s “Virtual Chicken House”. A neighborhood resident and artist, who does not want his address or name published, has created a project that he says was inspired by the local debate over urban chicken-keeping. “I was working on it before the recent flurry of messages over the neighborhood Yahoo list,” he said, “but with proposed legislation before City Council, now maybe the perfect time to take it public.”

It consists of a wooden backyard structure that is a little bit bigger than a standard chicken coop, but fully networked for an array of a half a dozen reconfigured Roomba vacuum robots, that simulate chickens. Using timers, cameras, microphones, and speakers, the ‘chickens’ periodically go in and out of the ‘house’, making slight clucking and pecking noises. The website with Roomba-chicken camera feeds is not yet online.

Photo Credit “Moving in for the Kill” Eirik Newth @ Flickr. Creative Commons. Some rights reserved.

“I thought about naming each Roomba after City Council members and various City officials and adding their photos to the tops of the Roombas, but I thought that might cause bad feelings so I decided not do that,” said the artist. Instead, he will be offering patrons the chance to adopt and name the individual Roombas. He noted that are other chicken Roomba automation schemes out there, as well as other forms of Roomba art.

Note: Roomba is a trademark of the iRobot company.